


Waves in a roaring ocean (can you see me now)

by KawaiiKitsuneGirl



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Don Draper needs a hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Suicide, h/c, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 00:40:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KawaiiKitsuneGirl/pseuds/KawaiiKitsuneGirl
Summary: for a second Don sees Adam lying there, the same as he was in life, and he suddenly knows that there was nobody to do this for him





	Waves in a roaring ocean (can you see me now)

Lane’s body hangs from the rope, over the doorway, and Don feels the familiar tightness in his chest, clutching at his windpipe and heart. Something clogs his throat, and it’s hard to force the words out- “Get something to cut him down with!”- as he stares at the purple bruising around his fellow partner’s neck and sees the familiar frown remaining on the slack face.

He steps forwards and supports Lane’s weight, holding on to the stiff body with disgust and loathing, and Don puts him on the couch as fast as possible. For a short man, Lane is heavy, and something in the back of his mind acknowledges that and classifies it as information he doesn’t want to keep, and it is stuffed into a folder at the back of his mind. Kept for a rainy day.

There’s an element of peace in the moment that Don can hardly bear, and the three of them (him, Roger, Pete) stare down at the body in front of them with sorrow furrowing their brows and lining their eyes, and despite the wrinkled cheeks and patched up glasses, for a second Don sees Adam lying there, the same as he was in life, and he suddenly knows that there was nobody to do this for him.

Don abandoned him. His own little brother, abandoned and alone in the same way that Lane was alone in the end and he doesn’t know why they didn’t just begin again, find a new way to live but he does know why. It’s a familiar heavy weight that crushes through his chest and sits on his stomach, pulling it down, down, down (an shaft with no elevator) and he remembers what it’s like to have that gone every time he confesses to his lies, and how it returns every time and ruins his life in the meantime.

He wonders; did they feel that same heavy weight? He wonders; does it go away for good? He wonders; was there another way?

He wonders if that’s the only way.

His thoughts cloud the front of his mind, and the others gently guide him out of the room whilst his feet move of their own accord (and what if he kept walking and found his way to a roof? To a noose? To the ocean?) and it’s not until the five of them stand in silence in the hallway that he realises what he’s thinking.

Don isn’t regretting that Lane committed suicide. He’s wondering whether it’s a viable solution.

The panic returns, settling in his chest until he can’t breathe, and he leans forward a little in pain, sweat beginning to collect on his forehead.

“Don?” Roger asks, looking to the side where Don stands, brow furrowed, and it’s him who notices that Don’s hands are shaking. Pete’s too occupied with his own emotions to see, and Don wouldn’t want either of them to see him like this anyway.

“I’m fine,” Don says, a far cry from the man who thought he was having a heart attack (because it’s not that, and this time he knows it). “I’m just going to the toilet,” he says quickly, because oxygen is hard to come by, and he starts walking even as blackness threatens to creep into the edge of his vision. He walks faster and faster, and behind him Roger stares in concern at his slumped back.

He makes it to the toilets in time to bend over them and gasp desperately for air, legs shaking beneath him and collapsing onto the floor of the cubicle, air refusing to enter his lungs and it’s a little bit of a blur to try and recall the next few minutes.

Roger stays where he was, watching Don list away, and he looks at the other partners and Joan, seeing them all with their heads bowed in respect and sorrow. He was never as close to Lane, honestly, they had never gotten along brilliantly, and for a moment he feels out of place in a private sorrow he does not fully share.

He makes the decision to go after Don.

It only takes a second to reach the bathroom, and it’s a little confusing to see that Don isn’t immediately in sight- he was expecting the man to be just inside the doors or at the sink, but there’s no sign of him.

“Don?” he calls out, then sees that one of the cubicles is mostly shut, and pushes it open to see Don slumped most of the way to the floor, gasping for breath.

“Don! Are you okay?” Roger asks hurriedly, stepping forwards to prop his friend up, and gets a wild slap for his effort.

“What the fuck?” he asks, but Don isn’t listening. 

“Don’t touch me,” the latter rasps out, shaking harder. “Please, don’t touch me,” he says again and Roger backs away, hands up in surrender.

“I’m not touching you,” he says “but I think you need to calm down,”

Don sends him a glare, somewhat lucid, and Roger shrugs with an awkwardly concerned smile, even as Don’s trembling becomes more pronounced and he desperately leans over the toilet to vomit, hands clutching at the side of the bowl.

“Don! Chill!” Roger orders, confused but worried, and Don vomits again, bringing up only bile this time and settles back down on his haunches, leaning against the side of the cubicle and resting his sweaty forehead on the cool surface.

“Sorry,” he says “I’ll be fine. Just go,” he smiles a tiny amount, just a twitch of his lips, and Roger stares back.

“Yeah right,” he snorts in disbelief. “I’m not just going to go. What was that?”

Don tries to smile again, but his expression isn’t quite right and it just makes Roger more concerned. 

“Don. Tell me,” he orders, and the smile slides right off Don’s face, onto the floor and it flushes away with the vomit as Don stands up and tries to escape from him. “No, you are not going anywhere,”

“You can’t keep me here,” Don rolls his eyes, but there’s no heat behind the movement and they both know it. Roger looks down, and Don’s hands are still trembling, and when Roger takes a step closer, he sees that the shaking becomes more pronounced again, just like before.

“Are you scared of me?” Roger asks suddenly, and Don jerks his head up, startled at the comment, and somewhere Roger might be hurt, but mostly he’s just confused by the realisation that he’s right.

“Lane’s dead,” Don replies, blunt and non-sequential, and Roger furrows his brow as he tries to puzzle out his partner and friend. 

“Yes. I know,” Roger replies, unable to hide the flicker of sadness that colours his voice, because for all they didn’t get along, Lane was a good man and undeserving of an end like this.

There’s a silence.

“…did you know I had a brother?” Don finally breaks the quiet, and Roger shakes his head in a silent no, and Don keeps on talking.

“He- he died. A few years ago. He-“ Don breaks off, voice unnaturally emotive and Roger is shocked to see a tear slide down Don’s cheek. “He committed suicide,”

Oh. Oh. It makes a bit more sense to him now, and Roger feels his face crumple into an oddly expressed pity, despite his attempts to hide it.

“I didn’t know that,” Roger replies, and it’s Don’s face now which rearranges into a strange mix of sorrow and guilt.

“We hadn’t been on good terms…he came to see me a few weeks before, but I turned him away,” Don confesses, the words echoing around the quiet bathroom. “Maybe- maybe I could have-“ he doesn’t finish the sentence.

“There’s no point feeling guilty over what ifs,” Roger replies with a crooked smile, but then he doesn’t know what to say because the man in front of him suddenly has tears streaming down his face, and this isn’t a side of Don that Roger knows how to deal with.

Don turns away from Roger, ashamed of his weakness, and brusquely wipes his face with his sleeve, but they are quickly replaced with more. “Sorry,” he whispers, and Roger steps forwards instinctively and holds his arms open.

Don doesn’t move. He doesn’t do hugs, but Roger doesn’t take no for an answer and pulls him into one anyway, ignoring the fact that both of their suits are a mess and ignoring the wetness that seeps into the shoulder of his jacket. Don stiffens at the touch, and for a second Roger is scared that whatever was going on earlier is going to happen again, but then he softens almost imperceptibly and instead trembles, fragile beneath Roger’s fingers and doesn’t move his arms to hug Roger back, despite the sobs that the elder can feel ripping through his frame.

“Sorry,” Don repeats eventually, stepping back and wiping his face again, and still not looking at Roger.

“Don’t be. Death is sad,” Roger replies understandingly, eyes boring searchingly into Don’s face, or the little he can see of it, and that’s when Pete bursts into the room.

“What the hell? Why are you both hiding in here? Do you want this company to continue or not?” he yells, then takes in the room, doing a double take when he looks at Don and sees his red, puffy eyes and dishevelled shirt, and appearing just as confused by Roger’s presence and similarly scruffy appearance.

“I- Sorry, I’ll be waiting outside,” Pete apologises quietly and steps out the room again. Roger sees Don exhale audibly, breathing purposeful and slow, and walks over to the toilets to grab a few pieces of toilet roll to hand to his friend.

“I’ll go talk to him. We can discuss work later,” he tells Don, who quietly nods and accepts the toilet paper with eyes that still shine with grief and a lip that trembles with the effort of holding that back. Roger knows that he hasn’t been told everything, despite the wealth of information he’s just received, but he knows that Don is a solitary person and wouldn’t appreciate his presence any longer anyway. He’ll leave and they can talk another day.

He steps out of the room, swinging the door shut behind him, and pretends not to hear the quiet sobs of anguish that follow him out, and Pete is right there.

“Is Don okay?” Pete asks, and Roger realises again that Pete is so very young in comparison to him, and also that for all his hatred or hero-worship, Pete’s never truly known Donald Draper.

“He will be,” Roger replies, and hopes with all his might that what he says is true.


End file.
